


It Mattered

by ilovethisship



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Admiration, F/M, POV Bellamy, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 03:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3274436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovethisship/pseuds/ilovethisship
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She could have, and didn’t, mention the fact that she was better at making hard choices after all. She didn’t mention much at all, actually."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Mattered

**Author's Note:**

> Very short little fic that I accidentally wrote. Takes place in 1x03. Bellamy's POV.

            He was frozen in place, just as he had been since he heard Charlotte screaming. Atom’s breathing finally stopped, but Clarke hadn’t. Bellamy couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she hummed and continued to brush Atom’s air out of his eyes. He looked at her and he couldn’t believe what he was thinking. It felt like he had never seen such a… decent human being in his entire life.

            Privileged.

            Spoiled.

            Self-centered.

            Obstinate.

            These are the things he had called her, in his head and to her face. Hell, he had almost let her _die_ the day before. And here she was, proving him wrong every second they were on this damn planet. Everything he had ever done had been for Octavia, and it wasn’t until he watched Clarke sink his knife into Atom’s neck that he realized that maybe, just maybe, he was just an asshole looking out for himself, because if he lost O, he’d lose everything.

            Irony struck him in that moment, and he almost wanted to laugh. He _might_ have laughed if everything around him weren’t such a mess. But he thought about why he had named his sister Octavia, about the history books his mother had read to him as a child. He had read about Augustus and Octavia again when he was older, and he hoped that his sister would grow up to embody the qualities of her namesake. But here, in front of him now, was Clarke. He had found those qualities inside the last person he ever would have expected to have them.

            Clarke’s brow furrowed and her hands stilled. She stopped humming and took a deep, shaky breath. The wrinkle between her eyes distracted him from his self-deprecation. He had seen that brow wrinkle at _him_ so many times in the past couple of days. This was the first time he had the urge to reach out and smooth it away. He didn’t want it there. She had done a good thing, and it didn’t matter that it had been for Atom, not for Bellamy.

            He couldn’t reach out to her, though. His body was still frozen, but that included the way he was staring at her, so when she met his eyes again, holding his knife out, it didn’t matter how much he wanted to look away so she couldn’t read his mind. For a moment, he was _so_ sure that she could, but his fears were apparently unfounded, because she just tilted her head and her sad smile disappeared.

            Of course. That smile wouldn’t be for him. He took his knife and leaned back on his heels, cleaning it off in the dirt before pocketing it again.

            “What are you going to tell everyone?” she asked.

            “He didn’t make it to cover in time.” Taking the knife back had broken whatever spell he had been under, but his voice didn’t sound like his own.

            “I mean about –“

            “The fog killed him, Clarke. You saved him.” That wrinkle in her brow came back and she studied him. Apologies tried and failed to surface, because none of the words he had were right. And she still just kept looking. Studying. He had to say something. He had to…. “Clarke, I—“

            The words were stolen by someone crashing through the bushes, and they both jumped up, ready for a fight. Bellamy just scoffed and turned away as Spacewalker and Wells emerged in the clearing. For their best tracker, Spacewalker sure didn’t have much finesse.

            “The screams were Charlotte,” she said, and launched into a much-edited story. He was grateful that she didn’t mention the way that he had hesitated. She could have, and didn’t, mention the fact that she was better at making hard choices after all. She didn’t mention much at all, actually.

            They built a litter out of some fallen branches and a parachute from Wells’s pack, and most of their march back to camp was made in silence. Clarke walked ahead with Spacewalker, rambling about the potential uses for the plant they had gone out to scavenge whenever a new idea popped into her head, and Bellamy was surprised that he wanted her to be bouncing those ideas off of _him_. It bothered him and somehow, he found himself thinking about the qualities in her that he admired.

            Selfless.

            Gentle.

            Confident.

            Caring.

            Strong.

            He focused on her hair as the light faded, the way it swayed as she walked, the way she ran her hand through it when it got caught under the strap of her pack. He was so focused on _her_ that he hardly noticed when they made it to the now mostly-constructed wall around their camp. But then she was gone, off toward the dropship with Spacewalker, and he could feel her absence in a way that unsettled him more than anything else had that day.

            “Get Clarke whatever she needs,” he said to the first person who passed him.

            It turned out that her charity toward him didn’t even end when she walked away. He saw the way that she tried to pull Octavia away before she could see what had happened, even if it didn’t work. He knew that wasn’t for him. It had been her trying to do something for O. But it still mattered. Even if she didn’t know it, it mattered.


End file.
